Taking a cruise isn’t essentially synonymous with journey journey. But the Princess Cruises journeys to Alaska open the door to the sorts of adventures that solely they will present—adventures that permit so many individuals to create their very own distinctive tales.
To create our newest buyer story, we accompanied the video workforce that produced the “once in a decade” advertising content material for his or her Alaska sea and land packages. Their small and intrepid workforce traveled to the remotest of areas with seven cameras, captured 15TB of footage, and labored with a globally distributed post-production crew and stakeholders to ship what their CMO declared “a home run.”
In this installment of Made in Frame, we meet Senior Manager of Media Production Scott Martin and editor Kristin Rogers, who took us by their journey to Denali National Park and past, as they explored the far reaches of Alaska—and the options within the all-new Frame.io—to create memorable outcomes.
Cruising altitude
With a fleet of 18 ships that serve 330 cruise locations throughout greater than 100 nations on all seven continents, Princess Cruises, owned by Carnival Corporation (the biggest cruise operator worldwide), are ranked #1 for Alaskan adventures for bringing the most individuals to the area. After 55 years of working within the territory, Princess not solely understands navigate the waters of Alaska, in addition they present journey experiences on land by practice, glacier journeys by air, and 5 inland lodge locations.
Still, Princess is aware of that they must constantly ship the form of eye-popping content material that ensures their continued success. And they’ve precisely the correct workforce to do it. More particularly, they’ve been in a position to craft the right workforce, regardless of location, to ship their most bold shoot to this point—with the assistance of Frame.io and their all-Adobe artistic workflow.
A 15-year dream
Led by Scott Martin, this challenge represents an bold rebranding. Designed to humanize The Great Land for individuals who haven’t personally skilled it by spotlighting genuine, emotionally resonant moments, in addition to highlighting the magnificent landscapes that solely Princess offers entry to, a shoot of this magnitude comes however as soon as in a decade. Deliverables together with model new video and images belongings required them to seize in depth B-roll, deploy A and B photograph groups, a drone workforce, and a workforce capturing product content material.
The challenge is the fruits of a 15-year dream for Scott, who has specialised in making movies in distant areas for the reason that starting of his profession. What makes that pursuit so difficult for most individuals is what fuels his need to take massive artistic swings. “When I was in my twenties and I was spending a lot of time in Alaska, I learned valuable filmmaking lessons from Alaskans because they just do more with less. There’s a tenacity. There’s a toughness that I think we, as filmmakers, can learn from,” he says.
One of crucial photos for the workforce to seize was Denali at sundown and dawn. Seeing it’s the purpose so many individuals journey to Alaska and, for Princess, together with it within the marketing campaign was a should. “The most challenging thing about Denali is she’s only visible 30 percent of the time. So 70 percent of the time, that gorgeous mountain is unfilmable,” Scott says. “What I heard the most was that this was going to be impossible, and for our team, that’s the strongest motivator. As soon as I heard the word ‘impossible’ I knew we were going to be standing at Denali, mile 62, sunrise and sunset with beautiful light. And we were going to nail it.”
Which, after all, they did. But not with out intense preparation, the arrogance that comes with having spent greater than 300 days over the course of a profession in that setting, and a whole lot of luck with the climate.
“We planned and practiced meticulously and had an A, B, C, D, and E option for everything,” Scott says. “The number one thing that we could really lean on was that we had so much experience in Alaska. We knew Mother Nature was going to be a challenge, and we accepted that challenge. I think that’s what’s beautiful about filming in Alaska. If you want control, don’t film in Alaska. If you want the idea of being ready at all times, or if you want a filmmaking experience that’s ripe with adversity and changes and with being on your toes all day, then Alaska is the place you want to go.”
Charting the course
But much more importantly than the place they had been going was maybe why they had been going. “We’ve accumulated a lot of trust over the years and have a track record of going into very remote environments with small teams, but it’s still important to make sure the stakeholders feel that it’s a strong investment,” Scott states.
For a shoot of this significance, the workforce wanted to verify they had been as creatively ready and aligned as they had been logistically. In addition to stakeholders, that they had 4 workers members together with roughly 35 contractors to help the manufacturing element. Not to say the dispersed nature of the workforce—with members from Colorado and Texas to London and past. It virtually goes with out saying that Frame.io was very important to preserving everybody within the loop from the very starting of pre-production.
With a roughly 100-day runway to organize, the workforce wanted to work with producers and stakeholders to be sure that everyone was on the identical web page. “Those 100 days are focused on aligning the purpose and objectives of the shoot. We spent a tremendous amount of time on that before we got into the fun, creative aspect of it,” Scott says.
It’s why Frame.io is so essential to pre-production. “We have to align on our purpose in pre-production versus in post-production. That was something I learned too late as a filmmaker. The stories we’re telling today are largely leveraging a 10- or 15-year asset library. Frame.io really helps us understand at the beginning exactly what we have so we know exactly what we need to go get,” Scott provides.
It’s additionally why the workforce is absolutely invested in Adobe Creative Cloud, based on Scott. “I use Photoshop heavily in pre-production because I spend a lot of time putting screengrabs together or storyboards for our DP’s, producers, and crews. Often, especially when I’m using an image from a very specific location, there might be something that will detract from what the creative will see. So I’ll spend time in Photoshop erasing things because I want them focused on something very granularly,” he says.
Another Creative Cloud software that the workforce depends on throughout pre-production is Adobe InDesign. Marketing Creative Director Dani Bartov makes use of it extensively to “build inspiration boards and visual reference for everything from action and framing for a given scene to wardrobe, hair, and makeup,” she states.
Momentum is hearth
They set out in July, when the times had been lengthy and the chance to seize Denali at each dawn and sundown was packed into an inconvenient window from midnight to 4:00 am. But that didn’t deter Scott.
The workforce was geared up with seven cameras, together with an Alexa 35, a helicopter outfitted with a RED Raptor, and an 8mm movie digital camera. “They ended up shooting about 15TB of footage, and we were actually able to deliver a select reel 24 hours after wrapping, which is pretty incredible,” Kristin says.
Most importantly, when Scott is out within the wild he wants a approach to not simply collaborate intently with Kristin and stakeholders, he must know what he’s obtained within the can and what he nonetheless wants—whereas the clock is ticking.
“Scott and I work normal daytime hours when we’re editing other projects for Princess,” Kristin says. “But here he’s out shooting for sometimes 18 hours a day. I know this because I’d get notifications from Frame.io at 3:00 am [when she was working from Austin during week one]. They have so much going on—drone teams that are driving almost 3000 miles—and he’s managing all of that. With Frame.io, we’re able to communicate much more effectively, because even though he’s shooting in remote places, he has his iPad or his phone. He can go on Frame while he’s at Denali and mark his selects and send them to me. We could then sit down at breakfast or coffee or dinner [when she was in Alaska for week two], and I would get everything that I needed from him based on a quick chat and on his notes in Frame.”
For Scott, having the ability to assessment dailies in Frame.io was not nearly serving to him really feel assured about what he’d captured or to pivot if he hadn’t but captured it—it was extra about serving to his workforce collaborate sooner and extra successfully.
“My perception of what happened while I was directing is often very different from what’s in the footage. What Frame.io does is it basically gives me access to the most up-to-date information, so as I’m directing, I’m building the edit in my head with the comments that are going into Frame. The transition to watching dailies in Frame.io and commenting, and all of that communication going out to our editors immediately, was life changing for our collaboration velocity,” Scott says. “Because I think in creativity, we have to remind ourselves that motivation is a spark and momentum is fire.”
Delivering the inconceivable
As it occurred, that momentum helped the workforce pull off what appeared, at finest, unbelievable, and at worst, inconceivable.
Kristin recounts the story. “I was doing a radio edit and Scott had just gotten back from Camp Denali and immediately received an urgent email—‘Can you build a select reel for Princess’s meeting?’” (Scheduled for a mere 36 hours after the shoot wrapped.)
The leaders making the request naturally understood the magnitude of the ask and put no undue stress on the workforce. Which made the truth that the workforce got here by such a nice shock for everybody.
“We had never delivered anything that quickly in our entire production history,” Scott says. “But it became possible because we had Frame.io. We were able to let Kristin see 14 days of footage very quickly and were able to communicate at speeds that we have never been able to before.”
In the pre-Frame.io days, Scott figures it may need taken every week or extra to accommodate that request. We typically speak about how a lot cash or time Frame.io saves prospects…however can you place a value on suggestions like this?
Not to say that utilizing the Adobe artistic workflow permits different kinds of quick turnarounds.
“Sometimes things don’t always go as planned when you’re on a production,” Kristin says. “For example, the drone team was trying to capture this epic shot of a train passing with the Princess ship, but the timing was off between the ship and the train. They had a beautiful ship shot, but no train. And they had a great train shot with no ship. What we’re able to do with Frame and Adobe was that I was able to send Charles, our in-house VFX artist [based in LA], shots from Premiere Pro and then he was able to take them into After Effects and put them together seamlessly. Instead of having to wait for somebody at an external post house to put them together and send them back, he did it and was able to send it right back to me through Frame.”
There was additionally paint work required on these photographs, and the anchored feedback characteristic in Frame.io made it a lot simpler for Scott to particularly present the VFX artist what wanted to be fastened. “Scott was able to go to my edit, tag Charles and say, ‘Hey, can you replace this? I want this in the sky.’ And then Charles was able to understand what Scott was thinking at that moment, while he was in Alaska, and turn those shots around extremely quickly so I could drop them into my edit,” Kristin says.
The means to ship attachments with feedback is one thing that Kristin instantly discovered worth in. “I love it because sometimes, Scott, especially on this shoot, would upload a still frame or something that’s from a previous Alaska shoot that’s not in this particular footage, and say, ‘Maybe we should consider using this shot in addition to these shots,’ and then I know exactly where to pull it from,” she says.
An all-inclusive platform
In the times previous to Frame.io, Scott’s workforce had belongings unfold throughout a number of arduous drives, RAIDs, NAS and cloud techniques. Now, all their belongings are centralized, together with their collaborators and stakeholders.
“A lot of internal and external folks use Frame.io to access our system,” Scott says. “So whether it’s an editor or a VFX artist or a producer or an outside agency, all of them are heading into Frame to get the information and the resources they need. We also have stakeholders based in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Asia, and we’re constantly sending review links out all the time. The Enterprise features really allow us to collaborate with whoever we need to.”
For Scott and workforce, when there’s a unified place the place every little thing you want on your challenge is on the market—with correct safeguards, after all—the individuals concerned with the method can focus extra absolutely on the artistic course of.
The Enterprise options actually permit us to collaborate with whoever we have to.
“The entire post-production process for me has drastically improved since implementing Frame.io for multiple reasons. A big one is the way that I communicate with clients, and the way that clients actually communicate with each other,” Kristin says. “If I post an edit for clients and, let’s say there’s 15 stakeholders making comments on one particular edit, they can work it out in the comments. And I appreciate that because I don’t have to go to each one of them individually. I can instead reply to all of them and get them to arrive at a decision.”
For Scott, it’s about unfettered creativity. “One of the things that large organizations struggle with is trying to put creativity in a nine-to-five box. I am an adamant believer that creativity is at its best when it’s flowing. But I also understand that it’s incredibly disrespectful to your collaborators to expect them to be online all the time. Where Frame becomes so special to me is I can communicate at my speed. Prior to Frame, I didn’t have a tool or software or technology that could work at the speed of our team’s imagination,” he says.
“When we send review links out, our stakeholders and our collaborators can comment on that link 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That is what builds content velocity. If I’m commenting on something in Mountain Time in Colorado, by the time our producer in Vancouver has gotten up, that’s the first thing he’s going to see. It’s also eliminating several communication channels, because prior to Frame.io, whether it was Teams chats or WhatsApp, I believe that destroyed the creative review process because as soon as you decentralize that process you’re essentially decentralizing your leadership and your creativity, as well.”
It’s simple to deduce that Scott doesn’t typically keep nonetheless. Which is another excuse why Frame.io is vital to his lifestyle. “Let’s say Kristen is in an edit and she delivers that Frame.io link to me. It doesn’t matter if I’m at my desk, if I’m at my kid’s jujitsu class, if I’m having a picnic, if I’m on a walk,” he says. “Frame.io is just as good on my phone or my iPad, so it doesn’t matter what platform you’re on. Frame.io is always at your fingertips.”
Creating bespoke workflows
Ask most creatives they usually’ll let you know that no two tasks are the identical. Sure, you at all times must shoot, edit, and ship one thing, and also you’ll must share work-in-progress for suggestions and approvals.
But particularly while you’re touring to far-flung areas, capturing documentary-style interviews, and your B-roll is closely depending on climate circumstances and entry, having a workflow that helps you kind by an enormous quantity of footage and set up it into one thing manageable is essential.
“One of the features in Frame.io that I absolutely love is metadata, and I use it in all of my Adobe editing products,” Kristin says. “Frame has 32 standard metadata fields that you can utilize, but you can actually do customized ones, as well. You’re able to label something as a wide shot, a medium shot, or a closeup. Or, like with this particular shoot, they were using the Alexa 35 and some fantastic lenses that gave us some beautiful lens flares, and being able to actually mark which shots they were doing very specific light tricks with was incredible.”
Adding custom-made metadata fields to your media permits one other new characteristic known as Collections that allows you to use these tags to create sensible folders containing belongings grouped by no matter standards you assign. “With a standard file structure, you’d have to go through every single file. But with metadata, you can actually go to specific keywords and you can sort by them. Or you can sort by duration or by frame rate or anything else,” she says.
For Scott, utilizing metadata provides his workforce a few key benefits. First, it’s the power to customise statuses throughout the workflow. “Frame.io previously didn’t really map the way we think about our post-production process, whereas now Frame.io is a guide and a map that helps you understand who’s delivering what, and when they’re delivering it.”
But though, as Scott says, that will increase your content material velocity, it’s much more vital while you’ve invested in an costly shoot and wish to be sure that you’ve discovered all one of the best bits for each the present challenge and future use, as nicely.
It’s what Scott refers to as the price per asset. “You start to look at it more like stocks and portfolios, because you can see that the cost of capturing those assets can depreciate over time. The first time I went into the new version of Frame and I started playing around with the Collections, I got incredibly excited. Because suddenly I was looking at this vast Alaska library that needed to be distributed to lots of different people.”
A creativity resolution
As a visionary creator, Scott feels energized by the chances that Frame.io’s options unlock. “I think right now is the best time to be a creative person. Being a filmmaker in 2024 is way different than it was 50 years ago or even 20, 10, or 5 years ago,” Scott says. “I believe Adobe is developing the best creative tools, and they’re the ones I want to use. I know they’re going to work, and when we’re in very remote environments, dependability and consistency are key.”
There’s additionally the truth that their complete workflow relies in Adobe Creative Cloud, one thing that’s vital to Scott. “One of the benefits of having these tools under one big brand is they start to work together a lot better than having a lot of bespoke tools,” he says. “One of the biggest challenges is that we do a lot of manual tasks and work in a lot of different systems. So the more that you can reduce those manual tasks and have most of your team hanging out in the same spot, collaboration velocity is just going to continue to grow.” Notably, the broader Princess workforce is including Workfront and AEM to their Adobe ecosystem to additional streamline their manufacturing workflow.
Kristin is likewise an Adobe devotee. “The way I look at editing platforms is that it’s like a palette of tools. I’ve used every editing platform, and I’ve been using Premiere for about 20 years. I do a lot of documentary work and for me it’s the most seamless platform. I actually do a lot of my own mixing in Premiere, even if I have 20 to 30 audio tracks,” she says. “Same thing with After Effects. I love that you can right click on your timeline and you can seamlessly go into After Effects. You can bring in Photoshop documents, and you can choose whether you want to merge them or not. Everything just works so well together.”
What’s additionally thrilling for Scott is that the Adobe setting helps to carry video and images workflows collectively. “I’d hang out with my video team in Frame.io, and I’d hang out with the photo team somewhere else, which naturally creates a division between those two teams, whether it’s a physical barrier or a software barrier. It’s like, ‘That’s the photo team, and that’s the video team.’ That is not how I operate as a director. I want those teams to be in the same places,” Scott says.
“Now, the photo workflow is as cool as the video workflow. So we’re starting to bring in some of the photographers and retouchers, and they’re starting to hang out in the same watering hole as our video people. Now when I think about Frame.io, I don’t think about it as a video solution. It’s a creativity solution.”
When I take into consideration Frame.io, I don’t give it some thought as a video resolution. It’s a creativity resolution.
Beyond that, Scott appreciates that working in an built-in setting provides him higher visibility into what his artistic collaborators are doing and a greater understanding of their course of. “I can now create a space in Frame.io for every lens on the pipeline, whether it be an editor, a stakeholder, a producer, a director, or a DP. I now have a space that’s only for that person, that makes them truly feel seen and heard. What Frame.io buys me is different lenses into the different perspectives of people that need the information to make excellent films.”
The affect of change
It virtually goes with out saying that Scott is a artistic with an insatiable drive to create. Filmmaking is what makes him rise up on daily basis with a smile on his face, and the chances that Frame.io opens for him are a part of what places it there.
“It’s the ultimate team creative discipline and the best sets are the ones where world-class teammates are really working together,” Scott says. “Frame.io was the first piece of software or technology that worked at the speed of our team’s imagination. If you want to become a power user on day one, you can. If you want to learn at your pace, you can. If this is your first time using Frame.io, it’s fast, it’s intuitive, and it’s built for creatives.”
But then Scott turns into extra introspective. “The three things we all have in common is what’s on our gravestone. We have the year we’re born, the year we died, and we have the dash in between. The dash represents the choices we make about how we live our lives,” he says. “In this industry, we’re asked to constantly evolve and change as creatives. Frame.io is a software platform that has constantly changed as I’ve changed. Adobe tools are proving that creativity is going to continue to be democratized, and creativity is not for the few. It’s for everybody.”
Change is a continuing, however the photos that Scott and his workforce seize endure as a reminder of the majesty of our world. Whether these photos serve to encourage individuals to fill their lives by visiting these locations and creating their very own tales, or to provide these of us who might by no means go to them an opportunity to see them by Scott’s lens, we at Frame.io really feel honored to play a supporting position.
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